


A Tale Best Left Untold

by notcool



Series: Vuzio the Insane [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Confused Clint Barton, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hyrda, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Minor Violence, Psychological Trauma, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23300803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcool/pseuds/notcool
Summary: Loki doesn't know her... but he did. There was a time when he loved her more than anything. A time when she was the only thing that kept him clinging to life in a place where living meant pain. Part of him carries that memory of her, and as they work towards a near impossible goal, he realizes that he still loves her - even if he doesn't remember why.Natasha and Clint are sent to retrieve a Hydra mole and his data from a Hydra-run chemical plant. They weren't expecting back-up, and certainly not in the form of a vaguely-insane Simone and a vaguely-sane Loki
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Loki/Original Character, Loki/Original Female Character
Series: Vuzio the Insane [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1246571
Kudos: 3





	A Tale Best Left Untold

_A monster with a heart_

_A demon with a soul_

_A question with no answer_

_A tale best left untold_

\-------

_“You. Will. Suffer.”_

_“What are you going to do?” The giant laughed. “Bite me? You are nothing.”_

_“I will-”_

_“She bores me.” The giant drawled, waving at the guards restraining the irate creature. “Take her back to her cell. I will hear the latest intel on that eastern galaxy you were having troubles with…”_

_She was dragged back down the creaking metal corridor. Back down the turns and twists of the great vessel. Back to the cell._

_She was tossed on the ground, the door slamming behind the guards as they left her alone._

_She spit blood, a low growl rumbling in her hollowed chest._

_Oh, they had made a grave mistake to anger her._

_She would break them apart. Every bone, every thought, every fleck of life within their horrid bodies._

_They would pay for what they had done._

———

Clint Barton was tired to say the least.

After a solid week of fighting aliens, Clint had been forced to improvise more times than he’d really wanted to, including being reduced to throwing soup cans at enemies over the smouldering remains of a grocery store.

Needless to say, it was not his most dignified moment.

But the fighting was finally over, and Clint leaned back on a park bench, lapping drowsily at a strawberry flavoured popsicle, eyes fluttering; geez, how long had it been since he’d taken some time to relax? Too long, that’s how long.

Okay, so eight days, but _too long_!

“You look tired.”

Clint wearily dragged his eyes to see Natasha getting comfortable on the bench beside him, licking powdered sugar off her fingers.

“Where have you been?” He asked.

Natasha shrugged. “Had to check in with Fury. And I found a doughnut shop on the way over here. It’s good - you should try it sometime.”

Clint wagged his popsicle to and fro, following it with his eyes, as if that might make his brain work faster. “Uh… sounds good. Fury have anything particular to say or just the usual condescending cursing?”

“He did have something to say, as a matter of fact.” Natasha hummed.

Clint looked to her, eyes half-lidded. “Why am I getting a bad feeling?”

Natasha sighed. “I know we just got done, but there’s another mission. A SHIELD agent undercover at a chemical plant in Chicago hasn’t responded to hails for the past four days.”

“Oh, come on.” Clint groaned, stabbing his iced treat in for a bite and nearly missing his mouth. “Already? I can’t even go take a nap first?”

Natasha’s lip quirked on one side. “You can nap on the plane.”

“It’s not the same!”

“Boo-hoo.” Natasha puffed. She stood, but not before stealing a taste of Clint’s popsicle.

“Hey!” Clint complained. “That’s mine!”

“It was melting.” Natasha justified, already walking away. “Come on. We don’t have time to waste.”

In half an hour their jet was taking off. As they steadied Clint learned back in his seat, chewing on the strawberry-flavoured remains of his popsicle stick, perhaps a little grateful that someone else was piloting but in honesty too annoyed by the mission itself to bother voicing this.

Natasha had explained their mission quickly and efficiently, as always, and now she was curled in her own seat, eyes closed despite that she was definitely awake. She was tired after the week of alien battle as well.

From what she had told him, SHIELD agent Richard Hopkins had been undercover at a chemical plant where Hydra activity was suspected. He had reported on some of his suspicious ‘coworkers’ over the past few weeks, and then suddenly stopped sending in his daily report.

The mission was to rescue Hopkins and whatever intel he had gathered, and to otherwise leave whatever Hydra they found alone - it would be taken care of by a future mission, possibly involving more than just the two human avengers.

Clint wasn’t sure what the point was, really. Hopkins had been missing for three days now, and was most likely dead. Couldn’t he take another day to sleep and snack before they sent him off to rescue a corpse?

Apparently not.

He slouched further back in his seat, folding his arms over his chest and nestling his head between his shoulders in an attempt to take a nap, scowling the whole time.

He was still scowling when he awoke roughly five hours later, feeling as though he had only slept a half hour.

The pilot was muttering into their headset as they flipped switches on the dashboard, readying the craft for landing.

Grumbling, Clint rubbed his eyes and straightened, rolling his neck.

“Nice of you to join me.” Natasha greeted, not looking up from where she adjusted the array of weapons lashed about her right thigh and ankle. “I was beginning to think you’d entered a coma to avoid coming on the mission.”

“As wonderous an idea that is,” Clint yawned, “I fear one cannot eat sandwiches while in a coma.”

Natasha hummed, mildly amused, and nudged his quiver towards him with her free boot. “Suit up,” she said. “We’re landing soon.”

\-------

“Can’t Hydra ever set up shop somewhere pretty?” Clint grumbled as he picked his way through the rusted pipes and scattered trash that littered the back lot of their target building. “Like, I don’t know, someplace with a nice garden and maybe a few water-spitting goblin statues?”

“They’re called gargoyles, Clint.” Natasha deadpanned from her position three meters ahead of him, her gun drawn and held tight by both hands. She didn’t seem to be struggling as much with the landscape - or lack thereof - barely looking down as her feet navigated the debris seemingly on their own.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and technically the plant was closed on the weekends, so seeing a collection of black SUVs in the front lot upon arrival was hardly suspicious _at all_.

Hence, they approached the back of the building.

The rusted lock on a back fire exit barely survived a single shove from Natasha’ shoulder, and the assassins slipped inside, now silent.

As they followed the narrow corridors deeper into the plant, they came across more than a few questionable robotic devices, glinting with blue energy. Clint snapped a few pictures for Fury but otherwise they ignored them; no need biting off more than they could chew. 

It was a good eight minutes of exploring later that they slipped through a set of doors, and could suddenly hear voices in the laboratory down the hall. 

The duo slunk along the wall and peered in, finding the scene before them to totally not be suspicious _at all._

“And the long range?” A woman in a black dress suit queried. 

“Maximum of seventy kilometers, ma’am. Damage radius of a half mile.”

“How much for seven?” The female asked, her voice deep and icy. 

“Seven?” The man sounded nervous but somehow still confident. “Geez, I’ll have to ask my boss but you’d have a wait time of about two months which should raise the cost at least ten percent.”

“I do not mind that.” The woman dismissed. “I just need them by April. Can your boss handle that?”

“My boss is accomplished in these areas, ma’am.” The man assured. “You will not be disappointed. Though we will need half the payment up front.”

“I will make the deposit upon my return to New York.” The woman said. “I will see you April, then.”

“Alrighty then.” The man offered her his hand. “Pleasure doing business with you, ma’am.”

The woman shook his hand, her fingers pale and thin, but the strength of her grip nothing of the sort. She shook his hand with the force of a six foot man, cool eyes sparkling a bit as the side of her mouth curled.

Clint and Natasha exchanged looks.

 _We have until April to screw them over._ Natasha signed. _Let’s find Hopkins_.

But as they made to creep past the open door to the lab, a scream sliced through the air.

The assassins recoiled from the door, weapons trained.

Something hit the floor with a thump, the sound suspiciously close to that of a body crumpling.

Without warning a person came through the door, turning to face them.

Both Clint and Natasha fired.

The woman in the black dress suit looked down at the arrow and two bullets stuck in her coat, unable to break her skin.

“I admire the attempt, I really do.” She said, tugging them out and tossing them aside. “But it’s rather rude to shoot your allies. Or so I’ve been told. In any case, you’re late.”

“Ally?” Natasha was on her feet again, guns aimed at the woman’s head. “Who are you supposed to be?”

The woman was distantly familiar, but her eyes were too focused, face too clean, clothes to formal for Clint to properly identify her.

“I suppose I failed to properly introduce myself last time.” The woman chuckled - now _that_ was a sound Clint knew. A distorted display of cruel humour.”Simone Vuzio.” She offered her hand.

There was blood on it.

“Oh, I guess I should clean that off first.” She shrugged and let her hand fall back to her side. “As I said, you’re late. Hopkins has been dead for over a day, of course. But if I hadn't stalled this mortal then Hopkin’s collected data would have been destroyed. Really, you two need to stick with the schedule.”

Schedule? The hell was she talking about?

Clint climbed to his feet, looking the woman up and down. Physically, she looked nothing like the blood-covered armored maiden that he had last seen, but when he focused he could merge the face in his memory with the one before him.

“You’re… you’re Simone? Loki’s pal?”

_“The hell Tony?”_

_“I don’t know!”_

_“You’ve been missing for days! We couldn’t find a trace of you! And you just fucking appear in the common room?”_

_“I told you, I was kidnapped! Then Loki and that freaky lady of his busted me out and now I’m here!”_

“Hold up.” Clint checked the hall behind them, but it remained empty. “If you’re here, where’s Loki?”

Simone pursed her lips. “He’s probably upstairs already. He was planning on staying in the car, but with you two running behind _someone_ had to go dismantle this place’s security.”

Natasha was still regarding Simone through narrowed eyes. “Who the hell are you really? Asgardian? Something else? We’ve talked to Thor - he’s never heard of you.”

Simone frowned. “This isn’t high school reunion, little spider.” She said, bloody hand fidgeting with the hem of her suit coat. “We don’t have time to catch up - we should get the data and get out before Hydra sends backup. Loki and I need to wash up before dinner, and don’t have time for a shootout.”

_“What about Loki?”_

_“Ya know, Loki! And that crazy lady you guys met a few weeks ago!”_

_“Simone?”_

_“Yeah, that’s her name! She’s a witch or something. Made me a sandwich out of thin air. Poof!”_

_“Tony did you hit your head?”_

_“What, it’s true!”_

_“I don’t doubt that. You just used the word ‘poof’ and I’m honestly a little concerned.”_

“Hold up!” Clint shouted. He could feel a headache forming behind his eyes - just what he needed right now. “Okay, you’ve showed up thrice now in the past what, four months? And we’ve never seen you before and neither has Thor but somehow you and Loki are best buds?”

“Not! High school! Reunion!” Simone snapped, shamrock eyes flashing dangerously bright. “Now stand here and gape or actually do your job and help us find _your_ data!”

She spun on her heel, marching down the hallway away from where Clint and Natasha had broken in.

“Our job.” Clint repeated, his mind still short-circuiting.

“We’re behind schedule…” Natasha murmured. She moved to follow Simone.

“Wait.” Clint stared after her. “Are we really gonna-”

“Gonna what?” Natasha tossed the reply over her shoulder. “She’s had a lot of chances to kill us already. And eight eyes will find that data faster than four.”

Sputtering something half-thought out about a spider, Clint moved more on instinct than command, jogging to catch up with his best friend and partner in crime.

They followed Simone up a staircase to the second floor of the plant, where they were immediately met with a security guard.

Clint and Natasha stiffened, but it quickly became apparent something was wrong with the man.

The guard stood, staring straight ahead, unmoving, one foot slightly tilted as though he had been about to take a step.

Simone sighed. “Loki!” She learned around the petrified guard to call out. “I thought we talked about this! Lethal force is perfectly acceptable with Hydra!”

Loki appeared from an intersecting hall ahead, looking not at all like Clint remembered him.

Sleek raven hair was braided neatly behind his head, pale skin a contrast to the black turtleneck, jeans and shoes, eyes glittering an innocent green even from this distance.

“I’d rather not get blood on this shirt, if I can help it.” He stated softly. He took note of the two assassins behind Simone. “They finally showed up.”

“SHIELD does always love being late to important things, don’t they?” Simone mused.

“Okay, what’s this about a schedule again?” Clint prodded. “This was a duo mission. We weren’t told about any backup. And you two don’t even exist in SHIELD’s records, so you’re certainly not working for them!”

Simone turned to look at the archer, nose wrinkled in disgust. “Why the bloody hell would I work for an organization of paranoid mortal philosophers?”

“Who do you work for then?” Natasha asked, her voice far smoother and assassin-like than Clint’s was at the moment.

Simone blinked at the question. “What has you thinking I work for someone?”

“Simone believes our own interests align closely with SHEILD’s.” Loki’s feather-soft voice carried down the hall. “In short, staying in step with SHIELD missions is far easier than going on our own, even if it is a bit slower.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “Define interest.”

“Nothing to bother yourself with, little spider.” Simone was holding a silver dagger - where had that come from?

Before either assassin could even gasp in surprise, she had buried the dagger to its hilt in the security guard’s chest.

Blood dripped to the tiles.

Simone pulled the weapon out, and the man toppled backwards - still petrified - bouncing a bit like a dropped action figure. Red was seeping through his shirtfront.

Clint swallowed. He wanted to say something, but also didn’t want to be the next one with a dagger clean through his ribs. He settled for a mostly involuntary choking sound.

Natasha sucked in a short breath, but hid her surprise much better than her partner.

“Loki, I don’t suppose there are any other mortals on this level?” Simone brushed her hands off on her suit coat - the dagger had vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.

Loki closed his eyes a moment. “No one alive.” He reported, just as softly as before.

“Right then,” Simone grumbled. “Now for the hard part. Finding a hidden USB drive in twenty-seven rooms of disorganized laboratory.”

“Should we split up?” Loki suggested.

“You do as you like. Clint and I work better together.” Natasha asserted.

Clint barely avoided a massive sigh of relief. He shot her a ‘thank you’ glance, and knew she caught it from the slight nod she gave.

“Mortals.” Simone shook her head. “Aye then. You two can have this hallway then. Loki, you want the one to the right?”

“Why not?”

“Then I’ll take the one across.” Simone confirmed. “If you finish, move on to the left or back halls.”

Clint opened his mouth to agree, but Simone apparently wasn’t one who considered debate, as she was already walking off.

As soon as she started walking Loki disappeared back the way he’d come.

Clint and Natasha exchanged looks.

“Uh… start with this room then?” Clint waved at the door to their left.

“Sure.” Natasha blinked hard. “Why the hell not?”

\-------

_“Welcome back home.”_

_Loki turned to blink at the soft green eyes that he found so familiar yet could not place. “Home?”_

_She smiled, gentle, cautious, loving. “He stole your memories mon petit, but I know even without your remembrance your heart remains the same one I have loved since I befriended you.”_

_The tingle of death was still fading from his fingers, the tip of his nose. Loki did not know her face, but his chest ached for him to run into her embrace, to hold her and never let go again. To never have to leave her again._

_“I have no way to return to you what was taken.” She continued, eyes narrowing a bit, but only for a moment. “But despite that I know you are the same man who left me. Just as twisted, but just as good. With time I may be your friend again. I can only hope to win your heart once more.”_

_Loki did not understand. His head was numbingly void of thought. He trusted her, though he could not think of a reason he should. Perhaps it was only that he couldn’t think of a reason not to. “We… we were lovers?”_

_“Once.” She agreed. “And I do hope we may become so again. But that is up to you, of course. But know that, whatever you chose, I will still honor my promise to protect you. My Loki would have wanted that promise kept with my dying breaths, same as he would have kept it for me.”_

_Loki took in the pale green walls, the herbs drying where they hung from the ceiling. The misty mountains out the long window. The glistening shortsword settled in the umbrella stand as if it were the most normal thing in the world._

_“This… this was our home?”_

_“In a way.” She strode down the hall, nodding for him to follow. “We shared a cell on his ship. This is how we stayed sane. A mirage of a better place. A place where we were safe. A place where we weren’t prisoners of a monster. We lived in dreams for so long, trying to keep reality from crushing us...”_

_“...Cell?” Loki frowned, but stayed close to her as she walked. “You… you were a prisoner… on… on…”_

_This smile was a bitter one. “Yes, I was.” She sighed; the sound was painfully soft._

_“But…” Loki tilted his head. The memory was hazy, but he thought he could see it. Could he? The harder he tried to remember, the more the memory evaded him. “I… was… alone…”_

_“Do not dwell on what you do not know.” She opened a back door, letting them out into a garden that overlooked the valley. “I don’t want you to pain yourself trying to achieve the impossible. I want you to live in spite of what came before. I want you to have the life we’ve dreamed of so long. The life we thought was too good to be true.”_

_“I…” Loki could only stare at the back of her head as she knelt to stroke a curled white flower, long fingers gently cupping the bloom and plucking it from its stem._

_She stood, turning to step towards him, the bloom held against her chest. “We always hoped that after death we could keep dreaming. A last request of a cruel universe.” She reached up and, with the feather-lightest touch, tucked the bloom behind Loki’s ear. “And we did keep dreaming, my love. But we did not die. We survived - now it’s time for us to live.”_

\-------

“Could this be it?” Clint hissed, drawing Natasha’s attention from the box she was sifting through and to the battered USB drive he’d tugged from behind a bookcase.

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “Only one way to find out, I guess.”

Clint nodded and they met at the computer in the room, booting it up. Natasha bypassed the password screen while Clint pulled the CPU out from under the desk to reach the USB port on the back.

He plugged the drive in and crawled out from under the desk, hair scruffy, to blink at the screen that had just opened a new window with a soft beep.

Natasha clicked through a few screens, opening the files on the drive and scrolling through. “My god.”

“What the hell?” She was scrolling too fast for him to read every piece, but the glimpses he caught of Hopkins’ reports left him rattled.

“Ah, you found it!”

Both assassins jumped at Simone’s voice, but the woman didn’t seem to be concerned by their surprise.

She strode between them to peer at the screen.

Natasha went rigid as the mouse moved under her hand, scrolling through the reports without her permission.

“Oh dear, it’s just as I’d feared.” Simone straightened after a moment. “Alrighty then! That’s confirmed. Nice working with you, Madame Romanoff, Monsieur Barton.” She gave a little bow, and vanished into thin air - a sound cut through the air, the soft echo of a broken laugh.

The assassins stared. 

“What…” Clint glanced to his partner, but she didn’t have any answers.

They sat there a moment, then suddenly Natasha unfroze and ducked under the desk, yanking the USB drive from the computer and hopping to her feet. “We need to get this back to SHIELD. If there was something on here she needed, we need it too. We need to know what she was so interested in.”

“Yeah.” Clint nodded, albeit a bit shakily, and followed his partner in crime out of the room.

It wasn’t until they were settled back on the jet, engines starting to roar, Natasha rattling off a mission report to Fury over video call, that Clint could convince his body to calm down.

His muscles were stiff from being rigid so long, his mind racing with everything and nothing at once. 

He closed his eyes, and could almost see her again, extending a bloodied appendage for a handshake.

He could hear her soft laugh - that distorted display of cruel humor.

“Simone Vuzio.” He whispered to himself, the name uncomfortably smooth on his tongue. “Who the hell is she?”


End file.
